Beneath the crumbling walls of Shrek Academy, the air was so cold it seemed ready to freeze.
Zhao Wuji's massive body lay sprawled in the center of the crater, his chest heaving violently. Every breath came with the sound of blood and froth spraying from his mouth.
The once notorious Immovable Wisdom King had not only been forcibly stripped of his Martial Soul; Su Yun's ten heavy punches had pulverized every last shred of his pride.
The entire scene fell silent. Only a few birds, disturbed by the Soul Power, circled in terror above the distant treetops.
"That's that."
Su Yun smiled at Xiao Wu and took the folding fan she offered him.
"A fight at this level didn't even make me break a sweat. What a bore."
"Brother Su Yun, you're the best!"
Xiao Wu cheered and threw her arms around Su Yun's, then shot Ning Rongrong a provocative glance from across the way. Lowering her voice, she added,
"But that big guy with the face full of fat was so funny just now. He looked exactly like a rotten purple sweet potato."
Zhu Zhuqing said nothing, but her cool, obsidian eyes were now filled with awe and a stirring she couldn't put into words.
She instinctively touched the Diary Copy tucked against her chest. The seed that had only just begun to sprout in her heart was already growing wildly.
Yet behind this warm, harmonious scene, a gaze—icy, venomous, and brimming with murderous intent—was fixed on Su Yun's back like a serpent.
Tang San stood at the edge of the crowd, his teeth grinding audibly.
He couldn't accept it.
He truly couldn't accept it!
Why?
How could Su Yun possess such terrifying strength?
How could he defeat a Soul Saint with a casual wave of his hand, while Tang San, despite all the countless killing techniques in the Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridges, still felt helpless before one?
"He must have used some underhanded trick!"
Tang San roared inwardly, his face contorting with jealousy.
"So what if he has a god-level Martial Soul? That attack just now must have drained his life force, or he must have used some sinister forbidden technique! He's faking it. He has to be!"
Seeing Su Yun's unguarded back turned toward him, seeing how Xiao Wu trusted Su Yun with all her heart, the last thread of reason in Tang San's mind snapped.
"Die! Once you're dead, Xiao Wu will come back to me! Once you're dead, the world will go back to the way it should be!"
Tang San's right hand silently reached for the Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridges at his waist.
His movements were swift and discreet, instinct honed by twenty years of hard training in the Tang Sect in his previous life.
His fingertips brushed the leather belt. Several pitch-black Bone-Piercing Nails, glimmering with a faint blue light, slid into his palm.
The nails were coated with Datura Snake venom. His Soul Power was still weak, so the poison was nowhere near as potent as it could be.
But at such close range, combined with the force of the Tang Sect Hidden Weapons technique, a single hit would paralyze even a Soul King on the spot!
"Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track!"
"Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon!"
Tang San shifted his footing, gliding a step diagonally forward like a ghost until he found the perfect blind spot.
His wrist snapped. The Mysterious Heaven Skill Soul Power within him surged to his fingertips like a tide. This was his trump card.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"
Several streaks of black light flashed like bolts of death, their whisper-thin hiss almost impossible to hear. They flew in a triangular formation toward the back of Su Yun's head, his heart, and his tailbone!
It was a Tang Sect killing technique, sealing off every route his target could take to dodge.
"Xiao San, don't!"
Yu Xiaogang shouted from afar, though a strange glint of anticipation showed in his stiff, corpse-like face.
If Tang San's strike succeeded, then the threat Su Yun posed would be gone for good.
Ning Rongrong happened to turn around and saw what was happening. Her pupils shrank in alarm.
"Su Yun, watch out! Hidden weapons behind you!"
But what happened next became a nightmare Ning Rongrong and Zhu Zhuqing would never forget, and the moment Tang San's dignity was utterly crushed.
Su Yun seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. He didn't even turn around.
Just as the three Bone-Piercing Nails were about to touch the golden light around his back, Su Yun's right hand seemed to cross the bounds of space, snatching behind him at an almost illusory speed.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
Three clear metallic clinks rang out in quick succession.
The deadly streaks of black light vanished at once.
When Su Yun turned around, the three nails, still glimmering with poisonous blue light, were held firmly between his index and middle fingers.
His eyes were cold and mocking. The way he looked at Tang San as if he were a piece of garbage made Tang San feel as though he'd fallen into an ice cellar.
"A sneak attack?"
Su Yun's resonant voice rang through the dead silence, carrying an oppressive force that sent a chill down everyone's spine.
"Is this what your so-called Grandmaster taught you? You can't win, so you resort to this low, despicable trick?"
"You... How could you catch my hidden weapons?!"
Terror made Tang San's voice shrill and warped. He staggered backward several steps, then collapsed onto the muddy ground.
Su Yun walked toward him, one step at a time.
The ground quivered faintly beneath each step, the pressure bearing down like a mountain.
"Tang Sect Hidden Weapons? Hah."
Su Yun sneered. The Bone-Piercing Nails spun rapidly between his fingers like toys.
"You dare show off with a child's plaything like this? In the face of absolute strength, all your tricks are nothing but a death throe."
Su Yun turned and swept his gaze over Yu Xiaogang, who was doing his best to make himself smaller in the distance.
"Grandmaster? This is the monster you raised? He can't win head-on, so he shoots arrows from behind? If word of this gets out in the Spirit Master World, even the Evil Soul Masters will laugh at the spirit of your Shrek Academy."
Under Su Yun's stare, Yu Xiaogang's old face flushed the color of pig liver, yet he couldn't come up with a single word in reply.
His theories covered countless combat techniques, but he'd never taught his disciples how to preserve their dignity after a failed sneak attack.
"Take your junk back."
Su Yun's eyes narrowed. He snapped his wrist.
The three Bone-Piercing Nails shot away as brilliant golden streaks, screaming through the air as they skimmed past Tang San's cheeks.
"Thud! Thud! Thud!"
Three muffled impacts.
The Bone-Piercing Nails sank to their bases into the middle of the hard stone pillar behind Tang San.
Stone chips flew everywhere.
A searing pain flared across Tang San's left cheek, and a strand of severed hair drifted to the ground.
If Su Yun had missed by even a millimeter, Tang San would already be a cold corpse.
Tang San went limp. An indescribable nausea welled up in him, a physical reaction to being completely engulfed by the shadow of death.
"Get lost."
Su Yun turned away and didn't spare him another glance.
At that moment, the Diary Copy in Su Yun's arms surfaced on its own once more.
As he took Xiao Wu and Zhu Zhuqing by the hand and headed for the hotel, he moved his divine sense, writing the day's most biting remarks across its blank page.
[Today's disgust of the day: As expected, Tang San inherited the Tang Clan's fine tradition of having No Martial Virtue.]
[He couldn't beat Zhao Wuji head-on, so fine, but now he wants to sneak up on me? And he even coated those Bone-Piercing Nails with poison. Tsk, tsk. No wonder they call him Pure and Clean Young Master Tang San.]
[The only reason trash like him is tough is because he's got the protagonist's halo. In any other story, a despicable sneak attacker like this wouldn't make it past three episodes before being dragged off to feed the dogs.]
[And then there's Yu Xiaogang. His disciple tried to assassinate someone, and not only did he fail to stop him, that look in his eyes just now clearly showed he was hoping I'd die. One's a hypocrite, the other a real scoundrel. This pair of master and disciple are made for each other.]
[Rongrong and Zhuqing, did you see that clearly? This is the "friend" you were supposed to meet in the future. One's a snake who shoots arrows from the shadows, and the other's a fraud who leads his disciples astray.]
[All right, I've had enough of this dump called Shrek. Since someone likes playing with "hidden weapons," in a few days I'll show him what true Spirit Guidance Technology looks like. Terrifying indeed.]
After finishing the entry, Su Yun casually returned the book to his storage space.
Ning Rongrong and Zhu Zhuqing read the scathing remarks in the diary, then looked at Tang San, still slumped in the mud from sheer terror. The last trace of pity in their eyes vanished, replaced by deep disgust.
"That guy's disgusting," Ning Rongrong muttered, then hurried after Su Yun.
"Brother Su Yun, wait for me! I want to stay at the Red Ocean too!"
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